Saving faith is saving face

Recognizing the significance that shame plays in Japanese culture may be far more relevant than has previously been recognized. A Japanese seminary professor, when asked how he came to be a believer, responded immediately, “First, I had to think like a Westerner!”

The original Greek word hamartia translated as “sin”

What has not been a problem for Westerners poses as an immediate stumbling block for Japanese; in that the words for “sin” and “sinner” (tsumi and tsumibito), respectively, mean “crime” and “criminal” in Japanese and therefore makes one guilty of breaking the law. Sin is used many times in the Bible, and though the word “guilt” is commonly used in English for “sin” it is rarely used in the New Testament in that way.

The Apostle Paul says that the actual root human problem is “disobedience” (Rom. 5:19). In order to know the primary use of the Greek word, hamartia, translated as “sin” or “tsumi,” one needs to consider it along with the Greek word parakoe or “disobedience” (Japanese is fujūjun), meaning the failure or refusal to listen to or to obey. When taken together the full nuance of hamartia would be better understood as “failing to be perfect by disobeying directions in a free self-willed action.” This was the primary meaning of the word, with its second meaning coming centuries later as a “theological” term! A more correct reading of hamartia in the often-referenced Romans 3:23 would be “All have failed to be perfect and fall short of the perfection of God.” This may be understood, then, in the manner of a child disobeying his or her parent, as it was with Adam and Eve in disobeying their Heavenly Father.

Understood in this way, hamartia does not have to do with being guilty of breaking any law as such. Making everybody “criminals” in Japanese or in English doesn’t make sense! In the Hebrew Old Testament, the topic of guilt is basically limited to actually being guilty of breaking the Levitical law.¹ This nuance of hamartia would be common to the Koine Greek “Septuagint” (the earliest Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible still in existence), in use over two hundred years before Jesus.

Thus “sin” as a word was an arbitrary translation of hamartia centuries after Peter, John, and even Irenaeus (130–202 AD).² In some way, like baptizo and ecclesia, hamartia experienced a Westernization process from its original use. The “Septuagint” translates fifteen Hebrew words as “hamartia” (with no less than thirty variations).³ In the English New Testament, “sin” is the single translation of “hamartia” for over thirty different instances.⁴ There is no denying that the narrowed and singular nuance of the word “hamartia” translated as “sin” has a broader range. Further, the Scriptures in both the Old and New Testament speak rather to a disobedience and shame culture from Genesis to Revelation than a sin and guilt culture. Like Japanese, the Hebrew people of the Old Testament lived out a shame culture.

Shame is part of the human condition

From Tim Boyle’s The Gospel Hidden In Chinese Characters, there is fresh insight into the vocabulary dilemma as viewed from his singular work on the history of kanji characters. He shows the interesting connections with much of the Genesis story being found in the characters, especially when considered from a believer’s point of view. As with Genesis, it is to be particularly noted that, in the historic Chinese characters, the original result of “the Fall” is found to have been shame (haji in Japanese) following from Adam’s and Eve’s free exercise of their own self-will. Becoming aware of their nakedness they experienced shame, i.e., the “original shame,” so coined by Boyle.⁵ This historic evidence in keeping with the Genesis account flies in the face of the pervasive “sin and guilt” orientation of Western-influenced theology which resulted in an unforeseen wall to Japanese hearing and responding to the gospel.

Adding to this, a recognized scholar of Japanese culture and religions shared at the 1982 Hayama Missionary Seminar that there is nothing in Japanese religion or religious literature that accounts for the fact that Japanese culture is a shame culture.⁶ He came to his conclusion based on his interviews with Shinto and Buddhist priests and scholars and reading their works. The fact that Japanese culture is a shame culture without it having anything of a religious nature leads us to the consideration that the “original shame” is embedded in our human DNA until the end of the age!

It was not, however, Adam and Eve’s nakedness that was primarily exposed; it was their failure and refusal to listen to and to obey the Word of God that was exposed! In this manner, the first of mankind brought shame to the whole human race in seeking to become like God. Coming to know the difference between good and evil, they recognized their nakedness, were ashamed, and experienced loss of face before God. They lost the immediate presence of God the Creator and Heavenly Father.

Applying this to ministry in Japan

In an effort to resolve the tsumi and tsumibito problem in sharing the gospel with Japanese, the root problem is found to follow from the disobedience of Adam and Eve. The greater significance is that, having acted contrary to the essence of God and being created in the image of God, their action would come to define the common ground or state for all mankind. This was not over the breaking of any law as such, but in violating their personal relationship with God. From this understanding, a reasonable explanation can be made for mankind’s condition and the way for an individual to work out their own personal relationship with God. This truth leads to the reasonableness and understanding of the truth of saving faith in Jesus Christ from one’s need for a Savior and is therefore for all cultures and not just for the Japanese culture. On the other hand, deferring to the emphasis on the graciousness evident in the use of hamartia (failing to be perfect over against guilty as sin) with Japanese rather than waiting for them to comprehend the misconception of being tsumibito, will assuredly realize more results from the gospel.

Therefore, it is important to recognize how the same self-willed failure of Adam and Eve is evident in all from the womb. The first breath of life for the newborn baby is a cry for their own selfish need to be met! This is not a calamity of itself but is rather a manifestation of the common sense of self-preservation leading to a self-serving life for all (except Christ) born after Adam and Eve (Matt. 16:25–26).

Further, all are born naked, and though that nakedness may soon be covered in a warm swaddling blanket at the time, all cultures will come to experience shame from nakedness, as it was with Adam and Eve. This strongly suggests, from all said above, that it is the result of the “original shame,” the original disobedience.

Egocentric, self-willed man having lost face with the presence of God, the Planner, the Creator, the Organizer, and the Sustainer, is explanation enough for the otherwise inexplicable preponderance of the effect of Adam’s disobedience on mankind in all relationships. This is evident in the chaos around the world today. Governments cannot contain or eradicate pandemics nor eliminate man’s inhumanity to man as wars and rumors of war persist.

The good news: Mark says Jesus came preaching the gospel: “Repent and believe in the gospel” (1:15), proclaiming that in himself (Luke 4:16–21) mankind can be restored to the eternal plan and purpose for the kingdom of God! Reconciliation or the restoration of face with God comes through repentance. Repentance is the simple but profound, life-changing response to the call to repent of the self-willed, egocentric life for the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

The repentant believer, having the Heavenly Father’s forgiveness and accredited with Jesus’s righteousness, will realize the restoration to God’s presence (justified, made perfect by his sacrifice and resurrection, Rom. 4:24). Faith in Jesus becomes the personal restoration of face with God the Creator and Heavenly Father! Then comes the call for the believer to live life as a living sacrifice to His glory (Rom. 12:1). For Japanese, for all, saving faith is saving face!

1. Tom Worden, “The Meaning of ‘Sin,’” Catholic Biblical Association (UK), Scripture 9, No. 6, April 1957, 45.
2. Paul Axton, “Death as Containing Sin in Irenaeus,” Forging Ploughshares, https://forgingploughshares.org/2022/02/10/death-as-containing-sin-in-irenaeus (February 10, 2022).
3. Tom Worden, “The Meaning of ‘Sin’,” 44.
4. Greek Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains, eds. Johannes Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Vol. 1, 2nd Edition (New York: United Bible Society, 1989), 773–777.
5. Timothy Boyle, The Gospel Hidden In Chinese Characters, (USA: Xulon Press, 2015) 68.
6. Clark B. Offner, “The Place of Shame, Guilt and Grace in Japanese Religions: A Comparative Study,” Hayama Missionary Seminar, 1982, 33.